Support groups, forums Facebook pages are great informal daily sources of community support and offer the chance to see how others have been able to attain consistent diabetes control. Children are the main focus of families . Parents do their best to support their kids with diabetes towards a normal life.
Experiences of informal support[1]
· “several studies described how parents were determined not to let diabetes dominate their child’s life [22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33], so that the child could ‘have her innocence, to go out and play and feel like a normal child without feeling there is something different with her’ [28]. To facilitate this ‘normality’, parents adopted strategies that required even more of their time and effort, such as becoming actively involved in school and social activities (e.g. their child’s sports team) to allow the child to participate while ensuring a watchful eye on their glucose needs [25] and temporarily relaxing the child’s food regimen and later correcting high blood glucose if necessary [26, 28]. Caring for a young child with diabetes also had an all-encompassing impact on wider family life. Some parents reported modifying their own and/or their family’s eating practices to make managing mealtimes easier [26]. Bedtimes, leisure activities and holidays were also often adapted to accommodate the child’s needs and limited opportunities for spontaneity [32].
· “Parents described drawing on informal sources to support the management of their child’s diabetes. Most often, this involved their spouses/partners [23, 25, 33] or other family members [23], although their support could be limited due to relatives’ poor diabetes knowledge and understanding [32]. While parents craved social contact with other families, their caring responsibilities made them feel different to others and they reported struggling to feel fully present in social situations [33].”
The D-PATH conference, 7-9 June at Braila, Romania made possible learning from the
experience of two mothers, a nurse and a journalist, who started up two diabetes
communities, one in Cluj, N-W of Romania, the other in Constanta, S-E of Romania to
create support for their sons with diabetes.
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